Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Started working on another one tonight. This time I'm doing incremental saves at different progress points. I started with a favorite thumbnail I've had laying around for more than a year:

Open in Painter, lift image to its own layer, set to Multiply, then block in base colors on Canvas layer:

Block in foreground balcony and some rooftops in the midground, create slight gradient on ground (darkens with distance):

Add more rooftops out to shoreline, select rooftops with Magic Wand and repeat gradient to distance:

Add some ground light sources with Glow brush - brightest spot will be the focal point of the image:

Add light to foreground balcony, also some to distant tall buildings:

Final step for tonight, add two figures on the balcony

The brightest light in the image is only about a 25% value - not even close to white. None of the other lights is brighter than 50%. I'm trying to make my #1 read be the character whose head is in front of the bright light, #2 should be the other character near the doorway approaching the main character, and #3 should take the viewer's eye on a little tour of the city lights before coming right back to the #1 read.

I'm thinking that with the #1 read being fairly close to the horizontal center, I'm probably going to want to move the distant tall building right above him over to the left some - getting too much of a vertical line there I think.

Friday, May 23, 2008

After buying and watching Whit Brachna's environment video from Massive Black, I was bummed that he changed the submarine to a boiler by the end of it, so I decided to give the sub its day in the sun. Or in the dark sub maintenance bay. I like submarines, they're pretty cool.

Needs more detail. I'll have to put in another hour or two this weekend.

Monday, May 19, 2008

This is from a thumbnail I've had laying around for at least a year. I wanted to get the values down before going color. Trying to prep myself for an environment class I'll be taking starting in a few weeks. It's some kind of large reception room; there's a procession coming in to meet someone by the windows.

Monday, May 12, 2008

I don't get to do this often. Actually, I've never been able to do this before! I had a long wait for my plane in Manchester NH, so I set up in the Sam Adams pub there - where they not only have a whole wall of convenient outlets and seats for computer users, but free WiFi in the whole airport, bravo! - and painted. Very complex lighting situation, multiple daylight and artificial sources, I didn't quite nail it, but for the first time I think it looks okay.

Of course, then I see stuff like this, and like this, and I wanna bang my head against the wall...

Oh, also, my entry did not make the top 50 cut for Dominance War. Oh well. Now I can do some tweaks to it that friends have suggested, and make it better for my portfolio.